


VAPORWAVE DREAMS：ａｐｏｃａｌｙｐｓｅ．ｅｘｅ

by brieflygorgeous



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Social Commentary, hyunho says fuck capitalism!, vaporwave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23194240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflygorgeous/pseuds/brieflygorgeous
Summary: hyunjin has seen it on the faces of people from other districts. the wonder, the envy, the lust. seen from the magnetic train connecting south korea’s districts, nuseoul is a coveted gem inside a bulletproof hard case. outsiders are only granted permission to marvel at it from within when they’re hired for unsanitary jobs (someone’s got to wipe the ugly shit that comes out of nuseoul’s gold butthole).hyunjin hates this city.well, most of it anyway.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 21
Kudos: 77





	VAPORWAVE DREAMS：ａｐｏｃａｌｙｐｓｅ．ｅｘｅ

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shirimikaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirimikaze/gifts).



> [mushu voice] I LIIIIIIIIIIIVEEEEEE.
> 
> hello, long time no see! it's been a while since i've last posted a finished work and i am so glad this one can finally be released into the world! long story short this was actually my skz ficfest submission, but i had many self confidence issues throughout writing this piece and so i had to not only drop out of the event but also leave this wip aside for literal MONTHS before i could work on it again.
> 
> it's funny cause 90% of this story has actually been ready and untouched since months ago and i did little writing/editing in the last two days to get it completed. sometimes you gotta step back and cool down your head to really appreciate your own efforts, you know? i can barely believe i reread this entire story without hating it too much and deeming it ready to be posted lol but anyways, i'm rambling!
> 
> this was skz ficfest prompt #76: Person A works night shifts at the small 24/7 grocery store in the neighbourhood. Person B has trouble sleeping and often swings by in the late hours to find comfort in person A’s company. 
> 
> i tweaked the story a little (too much) and kinda diverged from the original prompt but i really wanted to write it the way it is. it's probably not your usual kind of story but i hope you can still enjoy it. this is a gift to sofia (shirimikaze), the original prompter. i hope it was worth the wait! also beta'd by ally (4racha), thank you so much for the help and the hype.
> 
> if you'd like to get into the vaporwave mood of this fic i suggest listening to any vaporwave mix you can find on youtube. half of them were my soundtrack as i wrote this hahaha
> 
> enjoy!

ｔｉｔｌｅ： ｔｈｅ ｆｌｏｏｄ  
ｂｌｏｇ ｅｎｔｒｙ： ｄｉｄ ｔｈａｔ ｎｏａｈ ｇｕｙ ｆｏｒｅｓｅｅ ｔｈｉｓ？

[ａｔｔａｃｈｍｅｎｔ_ｔｈｅ_ｖｉｅｗ_ｆｒｏｍ_ｍｙ_ｗｉｎｄｏｗ_ｒａｉｎｙ．ｊｐｇ]

the computer screen glitches a saturated magenta before it shuts down without hyunjin’s post ever making it online. darkness follows the lack of lighting from the burnt halogen lamps he bought from chan’s thrift store, so hyunjin embraces the dead monitor for a moment and pretends this is the end of the world.

this is the third computer he’s lost in a month, likely due to incompatible systems. the last time he tried to tweak the apartment’s central processing unit the landlord threatened to evict him for nearly causing a short circuit in the entire building. still hyunjin managed to have some wired electricity, regardless of it being barely legal anymore now that there are more efficient technology available.

efficiency isn’t what he is looking for anyways. hence the death of his third computer, gingerly nicknamed harry, the computer that lived. apparently the name jinxed its lifespan.

instead of disposing of it, hyunjin places the monitor and the tower at the corner of his room where he’s accumulated the last living (or at this point, deceased) specimens of these box sized computers. it’s a shrine of useless paraphernalia but it keeps hyunjin grounded through the technologic wonderland of his generation.

scientific prosperity tricks people into believing they live in a utopia, but really all it does is make hyunjin wish for an apocalypse. it hasn’t happened yet, and the dark can only simulate it for so long before the rumbling of hyunjin’s stomach reminds him to have dinner.

the palm trees lined up by the tile walls on the hallway have a bothersome plastic smell that makes his nose itch, but the illusion of nature is the best hyunjin could afford for decoration. real plants had their price skyrocket on the grey market recently, so most everyone have to make do with mass produced rip offs from botanic 21.

when hyunjin steps into the kitchen, the refrigerator door opens in automatic reflex. inside it, a bright cyan light bulb illuminates the dozens of fiji water bottles hyunjin stocks knowing it’s the only food that can’t go bad.

knowing ophelia is watching, hyunjin makes it a point to scowl at the fact she is still operating even without any explicit command. he doesn’t talk much at all these days not to prompt her unsolicited help, but these virtual assistants don’t care. hyunjin is just another pattern to be processed.

he grabs a bottle of water and tries to slam the door shut only to have it silently cushioned by the refrigerator’s foolproof smart technology.

the water tastes stale so he dumps it in the aquarium wall and watches as the entire bottle disintegrates in a cloud of rabid bubbles from the enhanced piranha he calls a food shredder.

they’re not even regular piranha, just genetically manipulated globs of transparent scales and fins that glow pretty and ornamental in every color of the visible spectrum. hyunjin bought them out of loneliness and the hope of feeding them ophelia’s metaphorical brain and watching them cannibalize each other.

it’s futile, he knows. ophelia is omnipresent. she might as well have parasitized the piranha already. maybe hyunjin himself is her next target.

he grabs a plastic umbrella and leaves before she can do so.

（．．．）

the rain makes him depressed. less because it drenches his permeable clothes and more because, as everything in this country, it’s artificial. although not visible from this distance, the dome encasing nuseoul serves as a giant water dispenser sprinkling a uniform sheet of rain down the city. it creates a sort of aesthetic people consume as if they’d drink the very sewer wastage of this city if only to have a taste of it.

hyunjin has seen it on the faces of people from other districts. the wonder, the envy, the lust. seen from the magnetic train connecting south korea’s districts, nuseoul is a coveted gem inside a bulletproof hard case. outsiders are only granted permission to marvel at it from within when they’re hired for unsanitary jobs (someone’s got to wipe the ugly shit that comes out of nuseoul’s gold butthole).

hyunjin hates this city.

well, most of it anyway.

some parts of hongdae are still a subcultural safehaven in a manmade stormy weather. it’s the closest to a lawless land in a highly monitored city, where all sorts of underground lifestyles still thrive before they become manufactured commodities. it’s where chan’s store is at, and hyunjin would pay him a visit if he wasn’t craving sugarcoated nostalgia shaped lollipops.

he waves to some acquaintances gathered like ants around a twenty flavor kimbap vending machine and turns left, where the barricade of vending machines gives way to a dimly lit alley where the door of a twenty four hour convenience store lies.

the air is pleasantly stuffy inside the store due to the old cooling system minho never bothered upgrading. it’s good. the discomfort it brings is more realistic than the virtual homeostasis from hyunjin’s apartment. it reminds hyunjin not to take every breath for granted without an oxygen renewal rate display.

minho sits on the counter with a yellowed magazine in his hands, sucking on a lollipop. he doesn’t even pretend to be sorry for being caught being unprofessional, instead he beckons hyunjin closer, presents him with a paper quiz for what the perfect summer vacation trip would be based on your personality.

“i got ibiza.” minho points his heart shaped lollipop to a beach picture with probably the most shades of blue hyunjin has ever seen in a sea. hyunjin opens his mouth in a silent plea and minho doesn’t hesitate to press the lollipop on his tongue. it tastes of blueberry overdose and minho’s favorite ginseng soft drink. “so it says i would probably love to spend my life away on nightclubs and overpriced drinks because i am a party monster or something.”

“sounds so much like you,” hyunjin giggles, hops on the counter to take the test as well.

nights with minho are his favorite because they’re unpredictable, like the old radio permanently tuned on the clandestine station that still transmits in these AM shortwaves that are subject to interference during stormy nights. a prerecorded voice does an impression of a forecast program reporting clear and sunny skies in chopped and full on static snippets through the sound of rain pouring outside.

“i got athens.” the sugar melts down on hyunjin’s tongue until it’s fully gone, but he keeps on nibbling on the stick. “known for its archaeological sights, it’s perfect for a classic romantic like you. who wrote this bullshit?”

“white people.” minho sticks out his tongue in a grimace. his taste buds have turned a deep blue from all the nasty food coloring from the lollipop. “the only asian city they have in this test is tokyo, and it’s the old version at that.”

minho returns the magazine to its display with all the other last century magazines and newspapers chan dug out of the international garbage containers at incheon sea port. it’s a disposable portrait of a world that doesn’t exist anymore, and precisely why hyunjin is thrilled whenever minho phones him about a new batch he purchased at a discount price, each issue dating a little back further in time.

“so.” minho brings two glass bottles from the coolers. their labels advertise the shocking taste of strawberry coke that coca cola’s new mineral water has. on the ingredient list, a whole paragraph of small font industrial chemicals. “what brings you here at this magnificent night?”

thunder cracks outside. the radio hisses and sputters before resuming to some ambience jazz.

“couldn’t sleep,” is how hyunjin encrypts the message of his technologic existential crisis. the fear of merging with the machines surrounding him keeps him up at night, imagining the various ways he’ll glitch out of existence, a fault in the code of reality.

“you never sleep,” is how minho decodes hyunjin’s angst into something they can work with. according to some medical magazine they’ve read a couple months before, insomnia is treatable. best results obtained by a few drops of a natural syrup by our sponsors, two flasks at deal price for a limited time.

no such treatment was available anymore without high risk of poisoning or private info leaked to the pharmaceutical industry, so they had to find other ways. hard candies became the pills they downed with cheap soda, from which hyunjin developed an addiction to the leftover sugar on minho’s lips as a side effect.

it’s not perfect, but hyunjin doesn’t want it to be perfect. he wants it to be real. and there are little things more real than the mismatched socks minho wears to work in an accidental fashion statement; or the bubblegum pack minho slips into hyunjin’s back pocket as a subtle form of melon flavored flirtation; or even just the dampness that sticks to minho’s skin even during nuseoul’s fake winter, defying all natural and manmade laws.

“kinda hard to sleep when all i think about is how much i want the world to end.”

“or how much you think of me.”

hyunjin snorts but doesn’t deny it. minho unwraps a hard candy he kisses right over hyunjin’s tongue.

（．．．）

ophelia has all of hyunjin’s monthly expenses in five different infographics on display on the wall, along with a suggested shopping list already linked to his online market account. hyunjin cancels the command and politely asks ophelia to shut the fuck up and leave him alone.

the screen turns off with a passive-aggressive swoosh.

ophelia’s personal agenda has been explicit ever since that one morning hyunjin woke up to a refrigerator loaded with groceries he absolutely did not make himself. a notification from his bank account informed of ophelia’s successful transaction on his behalf. apparently she was allowed to apply his savings the best way she deemed necessary for his living, and such permission came together with the apartment’s terms of service hyunjin totally didn’t read before signing up. it was standard and compulsory procedure.

that was when he started tampering with every electronic device in the apartment for a way to turn her off permanently. resetting her to default manufacturing settings is the only thing he’s achieved so far with his mediocre hacking skills though. he really ought to ask jeongin for help.

hyunjin opens his backup laptop to send him a message and is directly greeted by an inbox loaded with comment notifications for his latest blog entry, along with an update on his increasing bank account savings.

what started as a coping mechanism for the technological angst he suffered from became his main source of income after his brief endeavour as an interior designer proved fruitless when ophelias could do the same job, with virtually better results.

human failure got hyunjin a spot in nuseoul’s indie bloggers hall of fame instead, and easy money out of whatever temperamental word vomit he had for the day. apparently people wallowing in misery enjoy funding other people wallowing in misery but brave (or pathetic) enough to put it online.

the numbers on the monetizing app of his blog bring a luxurious kind of loneliness. hyunjin imagines suffocating in a pool of old won bills to an eager audience ready to dine on the dejected poetry of his flesh. would he even taste like anything but sadness and internet anxiety?

a window beeps on the taskbar.

ＸＸＸ ｃｈｒｉｓｔｏｐｈｅｒ ｂａｎｇ ＸＸＸ：  
ｈｅｙｙｙｙ ｈｙｕｎｊｉｎ  
ｃａｎ ｙｏｕ ｃｏｍｅ ｈｅｒｅ ｒｅａｌ ｑｕｉｃｋ？  
ｎｅｅｄ ａ ｆａｖｏｒ

（．．．）

chan’s pet chameleon is always a bright red while hyunjin babysits him. babysitting is a stretching per se. really all hyunjin does is follow sobble (yes, after the pokemon) inside the underground greenhouse chan illegally raises him and the many insects that serve as his meals, menu subject to seasonal availability.

today’s first course includes roasted cicadas caramelized in a smoky sauce that smells more appetizing than the cheap supermarket frozen bulgogi powdered in aroma compounds hyunjin is used to having for dinner. real barbecue is a delicacy few humans have access to.

“you’re living the good life,” hyunjin sulks, nibbling on a crispy cicada leg. he spits it out almost immediately. sobble opens his mouth in a threatening hiss. hyunjin hisses right back.

real pets are another expensive rarity affordable only by either decades of debt or theft. not even the entire sum of hyunjin’s lifetime savings could afford the pedigree puppies he often sees going on auction for stratospheric bids at the shopping mall. the closest hyunjin has ever come to an animal is the dead tamagotchis he keeps hooked to his belt loop. sometimes if he pokes them hard enough they come back to life in faded pixels.

the farther inside the greenhouse sobble crawls, the denser the foliage becomes, to the point the trees enclosing above them give hyunjin a taste of his favorite apocalypse dream where all human civilization has been decimated by mother nature’s wrath.

he’s been fantasizing about it ever since that one virtual reality school field trip where they visited the little register there was of the extinct jeju flora. the teacher had explained that human development depended on the sacrifice of natural resources, which they all should be grateful are being put to good use. hyunjin meant to argue but all his eight year old brain could do was wail and hug the closest hologram tree and earn him his cry baby reputation. apparently a guy can’t lament the consequences of capitalism without being ridiculed.

sadly what’s left of the environment is either being exploited for mass farming or just reduced to barren ashes. chan’s little hidden oasis is possibly the last trace of any sort of green life in the entirety of asia, and is also endangered by the government.

perhaps hyunjin’s best hope is sobble consuming enough radioactive ration to turn into a futuristic version of godzilla to exterminate nuseoul.

“do you think you could do that, sobble? grow big enough to destroy us all?”

sobble hisses once more before disappearing up a tree.

hyunjin blows his nose in a piece of moss, defeated. the apocalypse will have to wait.

（．．．）

chan pays him in old currency coins that have long lost their purchasing power by material obsolescence. money has finally reached its utmost conceptual stage by turning into merely fluctuating numbers in a bank account app. hyunjin hates it, and that’s what motivated him to start an exotic coins collection.

he gladly pockets the american pennies chan hands him.

“you look a little down tonight. go buy yourself something nice.”

chan sends him down the trapdoor of his basement with a wink too heavy on a certain kind of connotation for hyunjin not to know exactly what he means.

the underground tunnels that connect chan’s house to other miscellaneous places have many purposes: one of them is that hyunjin never has to use the front door—he doesn’t actually know where chan lives, can only assume it’s a shady neighbourhood from the amount of illegal transactions he’s witnessed.

another purpose is that every business associated with him is not under constant governmental surveillance. it’s one of the few camera free spaces, and probably the second one hyunjin feels the safest at. not even the cover up establishment signs have any connection to their real business.

well, maybe except the kissing booth sign framing the stairs hyunjin takes.

he emerges in the storage room of the convenience store where minho is collecting vacuum sealed roasted sweet potatoes and spicy chicken feet packages. minho secures the trapdoor shut with a heavy box of banana milk cartons once hyunjin is out.

“you’re early today.”

“i feel miserable.”

“that’s your permanent mood, hyunjinie.”

minho brings hyunjin his favorite comfort food, a styrofoam cup of instant kimchi noodles that sear his entire nasal cavity each time he breathes. the vegetable bits floating on the industrial orange broth look fake and pathetic. no way they can be good for you, and that’s precisely the reason hyunjin stuffs his body with junk food. he doesn’t want to spend his life meeting a health standard that only aims to transform him into disposable labor anyways.

“your nose is running.” minho wipes hyunjin’s nose with a scent free hand tissue that doesn’t irritate hyunjin’s sensitive smell. “also you’re crying. tough night?”

“i just hate humankind.”

“honestly, relatable.”

hyunjin tells him about the school field trip that ultimately culminated in his emotional issues and over attachment to the past. and all about the dreams he has of one day being surrounded by a real forest in an end of the world situation where all is good and human-less again.

“i have an idea.”

“does it involve the end of the world?”

“kinda.”

minho brings a stack of magazines and two pairs of scissors they use to snip off palm trees from paradisiac trip destinations and flower crowns from girls’ heads in a disjointed forest collage. they decorate the trees with the little fruits they cut out of candy wrappers and soft drink labels to create a sugar sprinkled apocalyptic portrait that shoots serotonin straight into hyunjin’s veins.

“it’s perfect, hyung.”

“almost. there’s only one thing missing.”

minho snaps a picture of hyunjin with the bulky polaroid camera hyunjin bought him for his last birthday when all of minho’s game cartridges and consoles started leaking a dark tar, well past their half century old expiration date. there was a very limited number of instant film hyunjin could find, which meant minho had to commit only the most important moments to memory.

and now he has hyunjin immortalized in a shaky and slightly out of focus photograph, with the red eyes of a cat staring back at them from where minho has glued it at the very center of the collage, forever in a perfect apocalyptic world.

“ah, there you go.”

“hum?”

“you’re smiling again.”

minho smiles his toothpaste commercial smile and in the reflection on his teeth hyunjin sees himself smiling back.

（．．．）

ｔｉｔｌｅ： ｔｒｅａｓｕｒｅ  
ｂｌｏｇ ｅｎｔｒｙ： ♡

  
[ａｔｔａｃｈｍｅｎｔ_ｍｅ_ａｔ_ｔｈｅ_ｅｎｄ_ｏｆ_ｔｈｅ_ｗｏｒｌｄ_ｂｙ_ｍｉｎｈｏ_ｈｙｕｎｇ．ｊｐｇ]

（．．．）

time concepts are versatile in a city whose forecast is sanctioned by the private company that owns nuseoul’s dome. admittedly any citizen is eligible to be a stakeholder and partake in the monthly online voting upon payment, but the final results are always manipulated by the richest to suit their interests. the average citizen just pays for the delusion of democracy.

it’s been six months since hyunjin has last seen the sun, the one that isn’t just an indoors medical procedure he sees once in a while. the clinic he attends is supposed to be specialized in soft glowing tans yet all hyunjin ever gets for his ultra sun treatment is the same shade of bone sad paleness.

to counter his increasing deficiency of vitamin d hyunjin pays for a monthly subscription of supplements that arrive in a round yellow box that promises him a taste of the sun. buried underneath beans of foam there is a minuscule bottle with a flyer offering 15% off if he signs up for the potassium subscription as well.

hyunjin downs three softgel capsules with a bottle of banana milk but doesn’t taste anything other than the usual bittersweet hollowness of meeting the appropriate daily amount of vitamins.

nuseoul gets high on disoriented sensory experiences but all the lack of natural sunlight does is disturb his already bizarre sleeping pattern. he can’t tell if it’s bed time or not by looking at the clock or at the electronic panels that curtain his windows and simulate a normal day cycle lighting.

with his bedroom shrouded in pitch black darkness due to the burnt halogen lamps, hyunjin contemplates the timeless void of an intergalactic apocalypse: what if one day the sun explodes and obliterates all known life in their planetary system?

rationally he knows there would be no pain to be felt once they’re all gone, but there’s something inherently depressing about the entire universe disappearing at once. not only it is too ambitious for a single mind to fathom it, it’s unnecessary destruction of innocent planets. the only existence hyunjin wants gone is earthling.

the led lights in the room suddenly turn on with an incoming call ophelia displays on the pc wall. a pixelated cat holding a twenty four hour convenience store sign winks at him.

“hyung?”

_“were you sleeping?”_

“failing to.”

_“all the better. come meet me, i have a surprise for you. oh, and bring your coins.”_

（．．．）

at exact 03:25 in the morning a strange phenomena takes place in nuseoul’s metropolitan subway. if you happen to come across train number 4419 at whichever subway station, you’ll find every wagon from head to tail absolutely vacant. many netizens argue it’s merely optical illusion or collective brains going overdrive with nuseoul’s insane lifestyle. on the other hand, multiple claims show evidence of people having taken 4419 at the exact same time and station to find no one but themselves as the only passenger.

the exact trigger of this event is unknown and widely discussed in online forums, mainstream and indie alike, with still inconclusive theories. hyunjin would highly doubt anything of the like would be possible in this hypervigilant city had he not been on countless lone trips himself.

inside train number 4419, the labyrinth that is the subway network turns into a single uninterrupted line that stretches in a time-space loop. the lack of any sense of direction from the blank tv monitors immerses hyunjin in a dreamlike state where he exists in the perfect stillness of constant speed, free of the vicious cycle of production for a few, blissful moments.

then, all of a sudden, the train slows to a halt, and hyunjin is fatefully delivered to his destination at the outskirts of reality, where minho waits for him.

“come on, let’s get into some trouble.”

（．．．）

minho takes him to a twenty four hour coin laundry place with transparent washing machines that allow you to watch your clothes spin in a tornado of bubbles for only fifty won a minute. the place is oddly clean for something hyunjin doesn’t imagine lots of people use nowadays—not in the era of thin synthetic second skin clothing that bounces off sweat and stains of any kind, permanently store bought pristine.

hyunjin hops on top of a machine gargling mismatched sets of socks while minho brings two packets of instant coffee they fuse into a fiji water bottle by shaking it faster than the washing machine’s highest centrifuge speed. the overly sweet and watery taste is bland at best, but it wears some of the tension off hyunjin’s shoulders.

once the machine beeps to a stop, minho crouches to collect his clothes.

“hyung, what is something you wish for?”

minho comes out with a pile of damp socks he counts by the pairs before shoving them inside a dryer machine. he holds up a single lonely leopard print sock.

“for me to find the pair of this sock one day.”

hyunjin blinks, rolls up the hem of his pant leg to reveal the lost leopard twin to minho’s sock.

“ah,” minho smiles. “there you are.”

he shoves the other pair inside the dryer machine.

“what about you, hyunjinie?”

“the apocalypse.”

“the apocalypse? like in the movies?”

“something like that, yeah.”

“how do you imagine it?”

“nuseoul in the dark. no sounds, no nothing, just the failure of its system. or mine, i don't know. just the quiet.”

minho hums, head tilted to one side in thought like a cat.

“close your eyes.”

“huh?”

“close your eyes for a minute.”

hyunjin does so, and he keeps them closed even when the icy cold of minho’s palms over his overheated ears startles the living life out of him. minho’s kisses are too high a voltage for hyunjin, and cause a very brief but very intense malfunctioning in his nervous system that simulates his much desired apocalypse, but it’s nicer. it doesn’t feel so bad to open his eyes and conclude it’s not the end of the world just yet, not when minho is there to welcome him back to reality.

“close enough?”

“close enough.”

（．．．）

minho lives in an uncharted tunnel section underground with fake double doors guarded by a greek statue wielding a lightsaber. it’s a bait entrance meant for distracting unwanted guests. the real door is a detachable square of floor that lifts like an invisible puzzle piece at minho’s voice command.

down a submarine-like ladder, hyunjin enters the iridescent dreamscape minho calls his home. neon lights frame every room in a glowing halo of pastel pink that gives the furniture a cotton candy texture. it’s like living inside hyunjin’s favorite escapist daydreams, in a permanent state of timeless and surreal grace.

“don’t just stand in there.” minho pulls back the transparent curtains that filter his room in distorted plastic reflections. “come here.”

hyunjin is immediately transported to a place he never thought possible to access alive, a transcendence so divine he pinches his arm to a bruise when minho reveals the surprise: an authentic tube television with a vcr and several old disney cassettes.

“hyung, is this real?!”

“it is real. the last of its kind, like us.”

minho smiles like they’re partners in a grand theft scheme whose goal is less the lucrative outcome and more the simple transgression of law. their every act in this holographic bunker filled with all things giga modern times still fail to erase from existence is a transgression punishable by at least five to seven years of digital reclusion, which never sounded that bad for hyunjin anyway.

minho holds hyunjin’s hand by the wrist and presses a paper bag of sour popping dolphin shaped candy whose colorful packaging is flaking off at the corners.

“what is this?”

“something funny. to go with the movies.”

they make themselves a cuddle nest in minho’s seashell shaped king size bed whose retractable half closed lid makes hyunjin believe he is a pearl in the making. buried this deep in the ground, wrapped in iridescent sheer sheets, he might as well be something rare and precious coveted for its impending extinction.

or maybe that’s minho, really. or their connection, plain and simple like watching each other in the dim pastel lights while mulan defeats the huns and defies every misconception ancient china had about women like her.

“they don’t make stories like these anymore,” minho says, eyes on hyunjin, feeding him a dolphin jelly.

it isn’t clear whether minho means the sweet-sour powder that launches sugar rockets straight to the roof of their mouths or the absurd feeling it brings when they kiss, like those cheesy firework scenes in movies, except the fireworks are inside their mouths, crackling loud enough so that when their tongues meet it’s like the entire earth is coming undone in the shape of minho’s lips.

（．．．）

ｔｉｔｌｅ： ｙｏｕｒ ｌｉｐｓ  
ｂｌｏｇ ｅｎｔｒｙ： ｍｙ ｌｉｐｓ

ａ ｐ ｏ ｃ ａ ｌ ｙ ｐ ｓ ｅ ． ． ．

[ａｔｔａｃｈｍｅｎｔ_ｂｌｕｅ_ｄｏｌｐｈｉｎｓ_ｋｉｓｓｉｎｇ．ｊｐｇ]

（．．．）

minho refills the vending machines in front of the convenience store with miscellaneous objects hyunjin hands him from a shopping cart. some of the items aren’t even the same from the rest of the row: packets of ultra spicy ramyun, bootleg hello kitty earphones, plastic couple rings and mint flavored cigarettes are all lined up together with no apparent logic. the concept is that you just never know what you’re gonna get next. it’s the whole magic of it.

“just like life itself.” minho presses the door shut once they empty the shopping cart. “you can never know what you’re truly in for. just try and make the most of what you get somehow.”

hyunjin punches in a coin. a sloppy packaged box of glow in the dark star stickers with barely any glue left on them falls on the pickup slot.

“oh, these are funny.” minho cups a star with one hand and makes a mini telescope with his other one. “take a look.”

there’s barely enough darkness for it to truly shine but the faint lime glow minho’s hands is still able to extract makes hyunjin giddy like a teenager. he pokes the sticky pad behind the star and decides to test his luck by pressing it to the tip of minho’s nose.

“it smells like some foul industrial shit.”

“you’re ruining my fantasy.”

“oh yeah and what is it?”

“take a guess.”

minho huffs in faux exasperation but lets hyunjin decorate his face with a full constellation nonetheless. it’s silly and sweet like imagining minho could be some alien born from the stars ready to abduct/save hyunjin from terrane misery. it’s an unexpected setting for a love story, certainly not a best seller one, but hyunjin likes it the way it is.

then suddenly, the unthinkable happens.

the dark.

not just nuseoul’s usual deep purple night. it’s an absolute absence of light, the silence of every machine laying dormant instead of their constant soft whirring. a power outage. a blackout.

outside, people scream their drunk brains out, lighting fireworks in rebellion, in rioting, he doesn’t know. hyunjin only knows he hasn’t felt this euphoric before since the last time minho kissed him, which was maybe twenty minutes ago. but this feeling is new and rising like the fluorescent dark green stars illuminating minho’s smile.

“you know what this means, hyunjin-ah?”

“what does this mean?”

minho’s face moves closer, so close it’s like watching shooting stars falling from the sky directly over hyunjin’s head and he already has a wish on the tip of his tongue.

“that we can put ophelia to sleep forever.”

hyunjin stills. and then he laughs like he never will again.

hand in hand they wander into the pitch dark night, conspiring plans about world destruction and vaporwave dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> whew that was a lot. also til the end of this fic i had no idea that "your lips, my lips, apocalypse" was a line from an actual song, i got it from a pinterest edit tbh lol anyways the song is apocalypse by cigarettes after sex and i actually think it suits this fic??? go check it out!
> 
> if you liked this story please let me know through a comment? pwease?
> 
> also you can find me on twitter and cc @hyeonlix [finger guns]
> 
> thanks for reading!


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